Kristi at Kristi's Ramblings tagged me with the Happy 101 tag! yay!!! Please go check out her blog! She has been so sweet to me since the first few days I started blogging! and right now she is doing a picture a day for the month of december. It has been so fun to see each pic!

We all headed to church for the Christmas Eve service, which was wonderful, as always!

There is a wonderful woman who sings for our church often.

Last night she sang the most beautiful song and im sure I was not the only one with goosebumps!

What an amazing gift to have.

This is the fam on the way to church!

After Church we went over to Charlie's house for dinner.My family and my grandpa and step-grandmother came along also!Charlie's house was decorated so beautifully!Here are just a few pics of the decorations:

We had a dinner of Prime Rib that Charlie and his dad made!It was soooo good.My future mother in law made the most amazing salad.The recipe is from a restaurant that their family loves called The Columbia.

We also had a beautiful dessert spread (which is my favorite part!)

I made the apple pie for Charlie's dad. I hope he loved it!After dinner we opened presents and spent some time together.I am so lucky to have met someone with such a kind and open family.It is a huge blessing that both families get along so well with one another!(i have no idea what happened to the camera here!!!)

Caroline (charlie's sis) gave me the most amazing present.She made a scrapbook of Charlie and I.She did the entire alphabet and put pictures relating to each word!Its so beautiful.I got a flip cam for christmas so hopefully i will figure out how to make a video of it and post it!Thanks Caroline!Charlie and I decided to wait to open presents to each other until Christmas Day.But he gave me two wonderful surprise presents last night!This is one of them!It is an M&M ornament to commemorate our engagement on Christmas Eve last year!The other was a christmas flip flop necklace!He gave me one the christmas we first started dating, and after 4 and a half years, it had enough!All of the stones had fallen off and I was soo disappointed, so he surprised me with another!

Christmas Eve was truly wonderful. I so loved spending time with my families and sharing such a magnificent day together.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

I asked Charlie if he could write the story of our engagement for me to put on my blog, and this is what he came up with! Everything he wrote is 100% true of how i felt and what happened!

Enjoy and Merry Christmas!!

It is hard to believe that it was this time ONE YEAR ago that my amazing fiancé finally proposed to me!

To begin with there are a couple of pieces of background info that you have to know.

First off, Charlie accidentally told me he was going to propose at Christmas when he was telling me how he asked my dad for my hand.Secondly, Charlie loves to Kayak and Fish and had convinced me that I was probably getting a kayak for Christmas so that I could go adventure with him.

Anyone who knows me would knows that I am not the most adventurous;

(uh, I am soo adventurous!)

however, I would not disappoint him and would seem excited anyways.

Well it was then Christmas Eve and Charlie told me he wanted to take me out for lunch, this kind of made me mad because I usually spend all Christmas Eve with my sister and family but I decided to go along.I knew I was in for something when Charlie made me blindfold myself once I got in his truck.

(The blindfold was my dogs sammy's christmas jammies!!)

After a quick drive we were at the beach and as he walked me down and took of the blindfold I saw a towel and picnic sitting next to a horribly wrapped kayak.

(It was perfectly wrapped! with about 10 rolls of paper!)

I thought “oh my gosh!” he actually got me a kayak and of course I faked excitement while really hiding my fear.So he made me sit down and eat some lunch he brought for us (my fav:Chick-fil-a)

the entire time talking about kayaking and how we were going to go after we ate.

When the time came I finished my food and went to open they kayak only to be relieved that it was his kayak he had wrapped to use as a diversion.

( I thought for sure we were going kayaking in the ocean after we ate!)

After we both laughed he told me he had my real present at home and we could get it after dessert.

I then opened a bag with my favorite Christmas tree cakes and m&m’s inside.

(picture will be added tonight!)

I was so excited because these are my two favorite candies, but got even more excited when I looked on the pink and green candies and saw that Charlie had them made to say

“I love you” and “will you marry me”.

I started screaming and jumped onto his lap.

(and squished my christmas tree cakes :( !)

Charlie said some sweet stuff that I honestly can’t even remember because I was so excited.

He then pulled out a green jewelry box and asked if I would marry him as he opened it up reveling the most amazing ring ever!

(very true!)

Not thinking, I was shouting No No No because I was so shocked but I think he knew my answer.

We are now one year past that day and almost all of the wedding plans are coming together.I am so excited and so blessed to get to spend the rest of my live with such a caring, thoughtful, funny, handsome, roughish man.

I truly am blessed and thank God everyday for His amazing gift to me on his Birthday!

I hope everyone has a truly magical Christmas and remembers to celebrate the birth of

Sunday, December 20, 2009

I had a busy exam week and then lost track of time being at home with the fam!

Also Charlie and I took our first session of engagement pics on Thursday!

It was a lot of fun and I can't wait to see all of the pictures!

Now on to the good stuff....!

We went and saw Kelly Clarkson in Columbus, Georgia the day after my dads bday. It was soooooo much fun! We left at 5:30 in the am and our first stop was of course McDonalds for dad!

When we got there we decided we should make posters since we would be in the 2nd row and she could def read them! So we went to Staples and made these awesome posters:

Then we got ready

and headed to the concert! We waited in line for the pre-show for forever! It was first come seating so everyone was freaking out when they let you in. Not knowing that almost everyone would get to be front row since the room was so small!

The Pre-Show was well worth it! We had to wait for about an hour but when she finally came out Jenn and I had to move over so she could walk right by us! She sang a song that she and one of her guitarist's wrote that was amazing! It was called "Call Me". Then she brought out all of her band (except jill and kate.boo!) who all played different horns for the first Aretha Franklin song she ever sang, "I Never Loved a Man". It was absolutely amazing!!!!!

Then we headed to our 2nd row seats! WHOO HOO!!!! and showed off our VIP passes!

All KC concerts always start with "Shook Me All Night Long"! So everyone started freaking out!!!!

Dad said the bass was going to make his heart freak out it was soo loud!!!

The whole concert was absolutely amazing! She did a wonderful job and was sooo funny!

Jill and Kate, her back up singers, saw our poster and started laughing and waving! We got it on video but i have no idea how to put that on here!

She sang for so long and it was absolutely amazing!! We had the best time ever!!!!

She looked right at me!!!!!!

After the concert the fam was hungry so we went in search of food in the small town of Columbus...after driving forever we ended the night at Krystal Burger!

Unfortunately I had to revise a paper for a final exam when I got back to the hotel...but Jenn helped me and we got done fast and went straight to bed!!! The next morning started our return home and of course another trip to McDonalds for breakfast!

It was an amazing weekend! I can't believe we actually drove all the way to Georgia and saw KC in a private concert, then in her real concert, then drove all the way back the next day! We were all super tired but it was soooo worth it!

If anyone has any tips on how to put a video into the post, I have some awesome video! Thanks so much!

A southern girl who is finding out what life, marriage and motherhood is like with her childhood sweetheart and sweet baby girl. We are learning each day the importance of life, love, friendship and what it means to "dance in the rain".